For years, I’ve had Trek’s everyday commuter, the FX+ 2, as the top pick in our list of the Best Electric Bikes. If you’re new to bikes, $2,500 is a reasonable price for a reliable, everyday commuter that you can expect someone competent to assemble and repair for you.

I was stoked to hear that Trek was updating the FX+ series, but I was a bit thrown by the move to the TQ HPR50 motor, which has a smooth pin ring drive—a more expensive drivetrain system that we first saw on Trek’s high-end mountain bikes. The new FX+ 7S is silent and more powerful, but it does raise the price quite a bit. Still, as someone who spent $5,000 on their own everyday commuter, $4,000 is within a reasonable commuter price point. And it's less trouble than getting a motorcycle license.

What’s App

Several days ago, I parked the FX+ 7 in front of my parents’ house. My dad came outside and shouted, “What a beautiful bike!” It is, just like its predecessor! I tested the small-size frame, which fit my 5'2" self perfectly. (It’s a step-through, so even if you’re shorter it should work.) The frame is aluminum, and all the cables are routed internally, so it has a very clean look to it.

One of the upgrades from the FX+ 2 is that now the bike has a built-in TQ LED display that’s built into the down tube. It’s bright and easy to read, and you can scroll through it to see different stats like battery percentage, how much time you have left to ride (approximately), and what cardinal direction you’re facing (handy!).

If you don’t want to use the display, you can also connect your bike to your phones via the Trek Central app (ioses, androids). There’s a Quad Lock on the ergonomic handlebars so you can use your phones as a display. I didn’t get a Quad Lock case (I should have), but I did like the app a lot. There are several tabs, the first of which is your bike dashboard, a map and navigation, your ride history, and finally settings, which allows you to tinker with all of these things.

There are three assist levels on the bike (Eco, Mid, and High), which you toggle through with small buttons on the handlebars. You can tune those assist levels in the app by tinkering with the power that it offers you or the pedal response. This is a very helpful feature for extending your battery life or maximizing your range. The other stuff is meh. Other ebike apps offer you maintenance tips and reminders; I would’ve liked those here. The navigation features and dashboard work but don't have much to recommend them ahead of your Apple Watch or some other dedicated fitness tracker or bike computer.

The bike has 10 speeds, with a smooth Shimano Cues derailleur. It has nice, fat 40-mm tires that sailed over potholes if I happened to miss seeing them. It also has the basic commuter goods, including a kickstand, long fenders, a rack that works with my Po Campo pannier, and integrated lights, which weirdly enough have only 190 lumens. This isn’t a problem with city riding in places that have street lights, but I have to ride in the rain and dark often enough that I would’ve liked 400 lumens (or even 1,000, as long as I’m just throwing it out there).

In general, I prefer to ride bikes designed by longtime bike manufacturers instead of those designed by people who used to design apps. It just feels nicer—the bike design just fits my body better and feels more natural. (I did have to wear padded underwear, because the seat is hard AF, but you can also swap it out pretty easily.) Testing this bike was one of the times where I couldn't believe that my job was just … biking to the art store or to the park. It was so fun.

A Pin for Your Thoughts

Let’s go over how ebike motors work for a bit: To provide you with assistance, electric bike motors spin much faster than your legs can pedal. To compensate for this discrepancy, most motors use a complicated (and loud, and delicate) system of belts and cogs. In contrast, a pin-ring-drive transmission uses a system where inner pins rotate within a cog of slightly larger outer pins. A pin-ring-drive transmission like the TQ HPR50 is much quieter, more efficient, and smaller. It’s better in every way—except for the price.

You need a tiny, silent, utterly natural-feeling motor on a mountain bike, because most e-MTBers don’t want to be reminded that we’re not fit enough to earn our turns, or whatever you pretentious, thick-legged jerks say. It's a little shocking to see it on a commuter, where you’re biking next to traffic and dealing with road noise and might even be listening to a podcast.

I spent some time toggling assistance on and off while pedaling. The motor is so quiet, and the assistance so natural, that it was really hard to tell when the motor was on or off except that my quads burned a little more. At 40 pounds, it’s not super light—it’s no Santa Cruz Skitch—but it’s also not a huge problem if you run out of power.

The TQ system has a 250-watt motor with a 360-Wh battery. It got me up the 15 percent grade hill in my neighborhood that I’ve christened “Battery Killer,” but it did take about 15 percent of the battery to do so. It took me about 20 miles on different types of terrain—flat roads, steep hills, and gravel—to get the battery down to zero, but when it’s flat, you can tinker with the level of assistance to make your battery last forever. I rode about 10 miles on the lowest level of assistance on flat ground and barely drained the battery at all. (I also weigh 115 pounds, and I know my larger colleagues have more trouble with range, so take that advice with a grain of salt.)

Trek also offers a very neat product that I wasn’t able to test with this bike but that I have the urge to tell you about anyway—it’s a range extender battery! It’s a 160-watt-hour external battery that is compact and fits in your water bottle cage, which is a huge difference from the huge, heavy, expensive double battery that I bolted onto my Tern GSD. That’s another option if your commute is hilly and you need a little more boost to get home.

I’m excited to see expensive electric mountain biking components start trickling down into other options in Trek’s lineup. Riding an utterly silent, naturally-assisted electric mountain bike through the woods is as close as I’ve ever come to flying. Maybe more people would bike to work if it was as pleasant as this is.

If you're riding a bike every day, then the upgrades on the FX+ 7 are worth it, and if not, well, Trek will continue selling the FX+ 2. I'm also currently testing the new Specialized Turbo Vado SL 2 ($6,500), which is the direct competitor to this bike except it's carbon and costs $2,500 more! It's all relative, but we're all riding every day, which is what really matters.